Hit It and Quit It! - Stop Talking and Hike Already

Paragraphs by Paul Miller

"A human being has a natural desire to have more of a good thing than he needs." --Mark Twain

I watched some guy in the Stinson Beach parking lot pacing back and forth waving his hands in awkward gestures like an actor rehearsing for "Waiting for Godot."  He went on and on. But he was not acting. He was on his cell phone.

I left him, and my truck, for a walk on the beach. As soon as my feet reached the dry sand, I saw on the wet sand towards the water, a seagull flapping its wings and mouth as if in great danger.  But it was not in danger. The gull was screeching into a cell phone.

Running back to the parking lot, I got there just in time to see the "actor" put away his phone.  So I dashed back to the beach.  And there was the gull standing quietly as foamy water streamed over its pinkish feet.   Could those two cell phoners have been arguing?  I am convinced they were.  But I was most shocked that I was the only beach walker surprised to see the bird using a phone.  I heard just last week that the Humane Society--on its questionnaire for people giving a pet up for adoption--must answer whether their pet can use an iPhone. 

I have grandsons who, when you talk to them, are actually texting someone with a palm sized cell phone.  The way to know if you're being texted out of a conversation is to look away as you talk but then quickly look back at the person whom you believe is listening to you.  The other person will be looking down at some twiddling thumbs even while they are acknowledging what you said with "Yeah, cool."  What you had said was, "I believe texter heads and cell phone freaks should be shipped to Texas, where the Texans jail people as casually as they open a can of chili beans."

I have yet to take a hike in the Marin Headlands, or in the hills surrounding the Fairfax Meadow Club, or along Seadrift's "private beach", or on the bird watching levees near San Rafael's airport and not pass some hiker on a cell phone.  I even saw a woman standing on a Golden Gate Bridge overlook talking earnestly into her mauve colored phone. The persimmon sun was setting.   She was waving her left hand as she was, I suppose, describing the unforgettable beauty of the scene to her nephew in Pahrump, Nevada.  She was facing directly EAST!

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Long time Marinite Paul Miller was editorial cartoonist for the Marin IJ, sports cartoonist for the Novato Advance, a cover cartoonist for the Pacific Sun, and is currently a cartoonist illustrator for The Ark.   He's had cartoons published in the San Francisco Chronicle and his surf paintings have been published on the Surfriders Foundation website. He joins MoreMarin as a contributing editorial cartoonist.

Miller, a former Marine and UCLA graduate, taught a cartooning course in the art department at the College of Marin. His paintings and drawings are in private collections in California, Arizona, Washington, Hawaii, Texas, Florida and Provence, France. Miller's book, A Cartoonist's Guide to Prostate Cancer, was described by Dr. Dean Edell as "a must for any man facing prostate cancer!"

Comments

[Danny Skarka]

Um..ok, well..I use my iPhone on trails for this! :)
http://www.co.marin.ca.us/pos/MCOSD/os_maps.asp

[Dear Uncle Bob]

Cell phones and ipods!!! When one goes out into the wilderness environment for a walk or jog, what ever happened to the sound of breeze fluttering leaves and bird twitters instead of cell phone twitters?

[Karen]

A great example of how people are too focused on multi-tasking... in this case right out of the immediate experience of the beauty surrounding them! Truly their own loss, but annoying to those of us who go hiking to 'get away" from the incessant chatter in our own lives.